Precipitation

weather · water cycle · clouds

Water falls down. Precipitation happens when water droplets in clouds grow so heavy that gravity pulls them down to Earth. This includes rain, snow, sleet, and hail.

Clouds make it happen. Inside clouds, tiny water droplets bump into each other and stick together, getting bigger and heavier until they're too heavy to stay floating in the air.

Many different forms. Precipitation comes in lots of varieties: gentle drizzle, steady rain, wet snow, ice pellets, graupel (soft hail), and crunchy hail.

Temperature matters. Whether you get rain or snow depends on how cold the air is. Cold clouds make snow and ice, while warm clouds make regular rain.

Showers are special. A shower is when rain falls hard and fast from just one small area, usually stopping pretty quickly, unlike steady rain that covers a wide region.